[Perdogg]

I have never heard of returning striking workers being added to the employment numbers to fluff it. Is this something new?

[mewzilla]

If I may, from the BLS....

Current Employment Statistics FAQs

[linn37]

I had no idea you could just leave your job because you wanted more money,collect unemployment and then come back to the same job.

[algernonpj]

I have never heard of returning striking workers being added to the employment numbers to fluff it. Is this something new?

The BLS collects two sets of data:
.one from individuals - the Household Survey;
.one from employers - the Payroll Survey or Establishment Data

The data from the Household Survey is generally considered more accurate and is used to get the unemployment rate. It counts the number of people working. The establishment data counts the number of jobs, not people working; one person can hold multiple jobs.

The introduction to the BLS monthly empsit (Employment Situation Summary) mixes data from both sources.

The 45,000 striking workers are reflected in the Establishment data which reports +103,000 payroll jobs.